


Rewards of a Faithful Heart (Include Laundry)

by Soubrettina



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Movie(s), Sickfic, Surgery, historical medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2055987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soubrettina/pseuds/Soubrettina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The curse is broken. Young Will feels taken for granted. Elizabeth can't be said to be having a bad day, but it doesn't feel like a good one either.</p><p>**Warning for home nursing and historical medicine- may squick some readers**</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewards of a Faithful Heart (Include Laundry)

“William! _William_!”

Young Will huddled by the fire and told himself- without much conviction- that his Mum didn’t mean _him_.

Not very likely, really. That was, she could have been shouting that and not meaning him, obviously. Very much so. But not like that. She wanted someone to come to her and do something, and when he last saw… who else she might have been calling, he wasn’t going to come anywhere or do anything very much.

Not after the men- who hadn’t actually looked much healthier, though they were clearly upright and working- had carried him up to, to Will’s Mum’s room. Young Will supposed that from now on he was going to be sleeping in the little room where she’d sent him last night. It wasn’t like it was unpleasant- it had a window and it was near enough the fire in the other room to be warm, and the narrow bed was of new feathers- but he’d never slept so far away from other people before. Privacy hadn’t featured large in his life before now.

He wondered if they were going to stay here, in the cottage that faced Lizard Point, where the cold green English Channel hissed and crashed just beyond the dry-whipping salt-scummed grass which flagged and complained in the sometimes-whilstling, sometimes waving, never-dying wind,until the winter came, a winter where surely no civilised person could live, in depthless cold and lifeless woods and all that great white nothing of snow. And whether he was going to meet any other boys. (Two years ago, he’d have added ‘and girls’, but recently none of the girls he met made any sense to him any more.) He really _didn’t_ think of the _other_ Will’s face when they carried him, that shade of grey and blue that nobody should be. Or that noise that had come from upstairs- among his Mum snapping at the men (who had said nothing at all) and the thuds of furniture being moved about, there had been that- that noise, that must have come from a human only because there couldn’t have been a horse or a bull or a deer up there- still less a ship, run aground, groaning as the timbers tore in half. And he was even _less_ thinking of the noise before it, like a watermelon being split by an axe.

It wasn’t so much that he- the other Will- had visited. That had been well enough- but he’d been supposed to be visiting for one day (which, in William’s opinion, made it all the stupider that his Mum had made a fuss about him going to bed. Perhaps she had wanted to show the Captain that Young Will lead a respectable life, to regular landsman’s hours- which would frankly be such a fib as to be funny, except funny in the way that Uncle Jack would like, and Uncle Jack wasn’t here. On the other hand, he did have _some_ idea of why his Mum wanted him to sleep in the little room. Which was just as stupid- if you only had a day and a night together, it seemed like a waste of time- it wasn’t like they could have wanted another baby, anyway.)

Young Will had even given the other Will a hug on the beach earlier. The other Will had looked surprised when he held out his arms, and had bent him back uncomfortably as if he didn’t really know how to hug downwards, but it had been a hug nevertheless, which was right.

And then the crewmen had brought him back again. He’d not only come for longer than a day, but he’d turned up _ill_ -

The door at the top of the stairs banged against the wall.

 _“WILLIAM!_ ”

Young Will managed to move fast enough that he wasn’t quite aware of having passed through the intervening space.

“What?”

“Don’t ‘What?’ me, William, God’s truth, do you have to talk like a Shipwreck brat?”

“But Mum, I’m your brat an’ you had me in Shipwreck, how…” Young Will sighed. “What is it, Mum?”

“Empty this bucket, will you? Oh, for goodness sake, you don’t have to _touch_ it, just tip out the bucket and swill it!”

“How come he got sick?”

“He didn’t. He- I got sick. When they- does that make it any better?”

“No.”

“Look, William, you can do this, or you can do it with a thick ear. Are you going to behave or not?”

Will tried to guess whether she meant it, and couldn’t. The words were angry, but the tone was… not right, heavy, like she was holding back something, but not exactly anger- more like she was trying to hide that she was drunk, which she shouldn’t be either, though her hand was gripping the doorframe ‘til her fingers went white, and her face looked wrong- tired and pale and like she was seeing him from a long way away.

And there was that _smell_ , that wasn’t coming from the bucket, or from her, and Young Will knew what it was- like you got coming through the boards as a mêlée thundered on the deck above-

“Mum, what are they _doing_ in there?”

“William…!”

“I’m going, I’m going.” And he wanted to go. He wished he didn’t.

 ** _He_** _wouldn’t have been afraid, of course._ Young Will didn’t mean to think it, but he didn’t really have much choice. _**He’d** have just shoved himself in anyway._

And what good would have come of it if he did? Nearly all the time it’s a stupid way to carry on, not letting anyone or anything warn you off. It’s not normal. 

 _“And he didn’t make a sound.”_ _Someone was holding him up to the grim fresco in a vestibule of a long-beached cabin, which showed… what, anyway? A lot of monsters and a man on his back, and a lot of red paint, and hands, tentacles and claws going in places that hands (etc) never should go._

How old would he have been? Four? That was right, he’d just been breeched. His Mum had wavered about his having his breeches and turned into a little man so young, but it was safer for him on board ship if he weren’t running about in a little child’s long skirts.

So he’d had his new trowers, and was assured that the itch would soon wear off, and Mr Gibbs was cutting his hair shorter, with sheers that were dull and too big for the task, and had come far too close for comfort to his ears; and his hair was being pulled, and his legs felt funny, and bits of _him_ were being cut off, and he’d cried, loudly, and Captain Teague had burst in with ink all over one hand and up his sleeve- that was it, when he’d been held up to that picture, with his leg smarting where he’d been slapped. “ _He didn’t fuss and scrike. They cut out his heart, and he didn’t make a sound._ ” And then he was handed back to Uncle Jack- who had got him his new clothes in the first place- and feeling that Jack was shaking, which he still didn’t understand.

Young Will knew it wasn’t much. Certainly, to anyone who knew anything about Captain Teague, a sound smack and a sharp lesson in manliness would sound like positively royal treatment, which of course it was.

Well, Young Will had been quiet enough ever since. He’d been quiet, or almost quiet, when they cleaned out the gash on his arm, yes. But it wasn’t just that. He was small and didn’t know very much, and in those circumstances the best weapon was to say nothing.

Of course, sometimes you found yourself saying nothing when something really had to be said. Supposedly his bloody father had been one for that, too. Perhaps he didn’t always have the impression, at the back of his mind, that if your name was Will Turner, and you made too much fuss, then people would come and cut bits out of you.  


But- but! William threw the water he’d rinsed out the bucket with wide over the garden in sudden delight- he made a damn sound this time, didn’t he? Not crying, oh no, but you could hardly call that- that _noise_ \- ‘not a sound’. Which went to show that- well something.

He scampered back in, upstairs, and tapped on the door. His Mum opened it again, and the bright, bouncy feeling he’d had went right away again- she looked all wrong- her eyes were a mess, all puffed up and off-colour.

“What is it, Will?”

“Can I see him?”

“What?”

“Can I see me da?”

“No you can’t. I tell you what you can do, though.”

She went in, closing the door on him- then opened it again, and put a great heap of linens in his arms. “You don’t have to wash them. Just put them in the bath and cover them with cold water.” And she shut the door again.

They were horrible. They were no doubt half of what the smell was coming from. They had blood all over them. Some of them were _soaking_ with it.

 _I won’t do it,_ he thought, making his way down the stairs. _I won’t. He’s not here for me. I could fall down here and my Mum wouldn’t care any more. All she cares about now is **him**. And maybe to have another baby- hah, only no doubt that’ll only be for a while, and then I’ll have to look after the baby. No, I won’t do that. I’ll just go away and work; she goes on about how **he** went into service from when he was ten, and she thinks he’s such a fine fellow for that, so I might as well hadn’t I? Might just as well be in service for actual money, anyway. Not like they’ll notice._

He threw the sheets as expansively as he could over the floor of the kitchen, and sat down by the fire, and carried on thinking about how he’d be best off making his own way for quite some time.

Then he got up and took down the bath, fetched water from the well out the back, and put the sheets in both.

He was using the water he’d spilled to mop up the floor when he realised he was being watched. It was one of the sailors from the Dutchman- the pale, overworked-looking man (not that that really picked him out from the others), with pale eyes and long but unabundant dark hair, that looked less like he’d grown it and more like he’d not been bothered to cut it.

“You’re Elizabeth’s little boy, aren’t you?”

There were times to argue with ‘little’, and times to take it that a man’s size was relative.

“I am. Sir.”

“Have you done all that laundry?”

“I just put it in water. So the stains don’t set.”

“Ah. That’s clever of you.” The man stood there, like he was trying to remember what he was supposed to do next. “You’re a _good_ boy,” he said, as if someone had been saying otherwise.

There wasn’t much answer to that, so Young Will went on mopping.

There were long shafts of sunset sloping in through the windows when Will’s mum came down. He wasn’t sure whether she’d want him to jump straight out of his chair by the fire or no, so he went halfways and sat up straight.

She looked about all finished- her hair was all coming unpinned, and her eyes were tired- but she was smiling, sort of.

“Go on. You go and see him.”

“What?”

“You go upstairs and see your dad. I’ll finish clearing up now.”

“Oh, it’s alright, I don’t need to see him.”

“William. Upstairs. Now!”

As he went past her, she caught him round the shoulders, and pressed a kiss into the side of his head.

“Ow. What was that for?”

“For? For being my son, you little bugger. Go on!”

William went up alright. Then he decided he wasn’t properly pulled-together yet, so he sat down on the floor outside the door. Because he’d have to be ready, just in case the other Will was… was… actually, he didn’t know.

Then he saw his Mum pass underneath the stairs, and realised that if he could see her she could probably see him if she looked the right way. He went in.

At first it looked like there was nobody there. The blankets were neat and regular like the bed had just been made; the pillows stood to attention against the headboard. Then it was clearer that they were tilted round a sheltered valley, where there was indeed a head, and the top part of a body, lying very still.

Young Will hoped he wasn’t going to be _dead_ (again) after all that. It hardly seemed worth it. What would Mum say? She’d never be right again.

Well, he couldn’t have been dead when she came downstairs, could he? Or could he? Was she smiling just for her son’s benefit, if you could call it that? Young Will was in such uncharted waters here, his Mum could easily be doing something so bizarre.

He tiptoed closer, which didn’t actually seem to make any less noise, but at least showed consideration. The other Will’s eyes were closed, but he seemed to be breathing a bit. His chest rose and fell, which didn’t make what was on it look any better- not that one could actually see it- a folded bandage was tied over the front-middle, with another that went round him- but from the ends and edges of it there showed a _huge_ … _thing_ , a big, black, fuzzy-edged patch of wrongness, like a sunken, inky bruise.

Only if _he_ really did make that little of it, it seemed rude to make a fuss about it on somebody else. 

He still hadn’t moved.

There seemed no other way of checking.

“Dad?”

The man in the bed opened one eye a bit, and then the other even less. It was only a slight improvement. In the half-light, the pupils looked so big that his eyes seemed black almost edge to edge, like a horse’s.  


“Yes, William?”

Which was an unhelpful question, really- he’d answered what Young Will had wanted to know by saying anything, and now he’d have to find something else, because you couldn’t answer that with: _You’re not dead, are you?_ Actually, maybe with Will Turner- this Will Turner- you could, but it probably wouldn’t be polite.

“How are you feeling?”

“Awful. Really awful. But I think I’ll be alright. Soon. Sometime. I don’t know. I’ve no experience of this. I never used to get ill much.”

“I shouldn’t think most people have. Most people die and don’t get better.”

“Oh, not that… it’s the bleeding. When they put my heart back in, it all started working before they closed me up. I bled a lot.”

“I know you did. I had to take all the sheets away.”

“You did? I’m sorry. You’re a good boy.”

Young Will shrugged.

“Yes, _well_.”

Young Will looked away, because he didn’t know how you were supposed to look at someone when they said things like that. But that way he found himself looking at the bandage again, which really was no better.

“Did it hurt?” he said.

“What?”

“ _That._ ”

“That what?”

“ _That!_ ” He had to know, didn’t he? The thing that was the thing everyone knew about him. The thing that had made chaos all afternoon, and had made everything the way that it had been for ten years. What did he mean, _that what_?

“You mean the wound, or the scar?”

“Both.”

“Hmm. I’d pass on the pain. In fact, I passed out on the pain. To tell you the truth, William, I don’t know.” The other Will closed his eyes. “It takes it out of you, though.”

“You can go back to sleep, if you like.”

“Oh, I’m not sleeping, just…”

“Collecting your thoughts?”

“Hah, yes, I like that. I’ll go back to collecting my thoughts.”

“They can be slippery.”

“Quite.”

So Young Will sat and held his dad’s hand for a while, whilst he rested, until it occurred to Young Will that this was all very good but it didn’t seem to be doing anything that was actually making him better. And his hand felt cold, and the room wasn’t very warm. So he laid the hand down carefully, and got up to make a fire in the bedroom grate.

He was very good at making fires- not in a wicked way, it was just that he took a pride in getting the little lean-tos of sticks, filled with straw and old paper, and working away with a flint to get a couple of sparks; there was great sense of having done something real and important when you got the taper of burning straw, and when smoke started coming from the lean-to, and you blew and blew until a flicker came, and built a bigger lean-to, and as that was lit from underneath you carefully arranged more and bigger wood until that little spark had grown to take on a log that was too thick to get a boy’s hand around.

By the time it was at the small-log stage, he thought he’d better go back to see how his dad was. He looked pretty much the same.

There was a bowl of water beside the bed, with a rag floating in it like a jellyfish. Of course, that was what you were supposed to do for very sick people, wasn’t it?

When the rag touched him, the other Will Turner made a noise that was all consonants, struggled, winced at some length, then opened his eyes.

“What are you doing, Will?”

“Um. I don’t know really. The bowl was there, and- I don’t know. I’ve seen other people do it.”

“I don’t think it works here, Will.”

“No?”

“Well, I don’t have a fever to bring down. And I don’t need a wash just yet. At least, I don’t think I do. All you’re doing is making me wet.”  


“Oh. I wonder why Mum left it.”

“Maybe she thought the same as you. I don’t know. I’m not sure how being a patient goes myself, really. Still, never mind.”

“I suppose.”

“It was good of you to try to help.”

“Yes… are you sure you want those pillows like that?”

“What? I hadn’t thought of it.”

“I’ll help you get them under you if you like.”

“You couldn’t do that, Will, you’re half my size.”

“Can. I’m a sailor, aren’t I?” Young Will leaned in and stuck his near arm underneath his dad’s back, and the far one under the near arm.

“Th-nnng-th-there you are, now-“

“ _Ow_. _Ow, William-“_

“Agh- um. Can you pull them down where you are?”

Will Turner (the other one) took a long intake of breath, and managed to catch a pillow behind him so that they both fell.

Laying him down without dropping him was, if anything, harder than lifting him.

“There. Is that better?”

“Well, yes, I suppose it is. But that’s me finished for today, I think.”

“I can read to you, if you like.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes.”

Young Will hopped down, and ran to the little room (seeing as he was of use because he was able and lively, he might as well be as lively as he could).

 _The_ Book, that he’d had from his great-aunt when they were getting his Grandad’s money in London, he thought was probably a bit hard just now. And he didn’t think his dad would really want to be read to from his mother’s chapbooks. _Robinson Crusoe_ might do at a pinch, but his dad had had ten years of being all alone himself. And _Gulliver’s Travels_ probably wouldn’t impress him much- he’d start noticing the mistakes. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to read Aphra Benn plays to his dad.

Then his hand fell to- oh, yes, there was always that…

Young Will went back and hopped onto the bed again. His dad had his eyes closed again, but never mind.

He opened the book.

_THE[man](http://www.bartleby.com/111/chapman140.html), O Muse, inform, that many a way_

_Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay;_

_That wandered wondrous far, when he the town_

_Of sacred Troy had sack'd and shivered down…_

 

When Elizabeth came in, it was dark, but for a fire in the grate, where the smouldering wood tilted perilously close to spilling onto the floor. (William, she was reassuring herself constantly, most certainly did not have incendiary tendencies. He’d just discovered something he was good at, and did tend to try and provide it at minimal necessity.) She took the poker and shoved it all back, and covered it over with heavy wood that it would take a while to deal with.

By the time she straightened up, the temperature of the room seemed almost tropical, though she still felt like her hands would never be warm again after so much cold-water washing in the chill of a Cornish evening.

She leant over William and Will (it wasn’t a good enough distinction. If you shouted at one of them, the other looked indignant. How did other people deal with this?) checked Will’s dressing hadn’t soaked through again, and prisedBook One of _Chapman’s Odyssey_ from William’s sooty fingers.

Young Will stirred a bit, rolled over, and gave Will’s arm a comforting pat, before lying still again.

Elizabeth found rising up inside her a great, gravitational urge to fall on both and embrace and kiss them. But Young Will wasn’t a baby any more, and if she did so, he’d wake, and struggle away from her, and protest, and may never be caught lying on Will’s shoulder again.

The argument within was such that she suddenly wanted to collapse on the chair and cry and cry.

She was tired, that was it, too tired, not so much from action but from… well, everything. The day had started heartbreaking, when he left, carried on difficult and frustrating with William’s sulking and ill-humour, and then had become so happy and horrible that she didn’t know what she was supposed to feel.

 She found herself an apple and some cheese, and took them up to the little room at the back, where William had slept the night before. The moon streaming in though the window revealed that he’d unpacked the box of books and left them all over the floor. Should she tell him off for it? He was usually tidy enough, and it was all for a good reason, but, well, they were _books_. You couldn’t accept books as an exception.

She’d accept it now, however, as soon as she’d taken them out of the bed- especially as she left her clothes in a heap on top of them.

 _You’re a good boy, William,_ she thought, as she fell straight to sleep.


End file.
